returning to Rome, and had more fully explained to Caesar how and where
he had met Melissa, and what he had heard about her brother the painter,
he lifted the wrapper from Korinna's portrait, placed it in a good light,
and pointed out to Caracalla the particular beauties of the purely Greek
features.

It was with sincere enthusiasm that he expatiated on the skill with which
the artist had reproduced in color the noble lines which Caracalla so
much admired in the sculpture of the great Greek masters; how warm and
tender the flesh was; how radiant the light of those glorious eyes; how
living the waving hair, as though it still breathed of the scented oil!
And when Philostratus explained that though Alexander had no doubt spoken
some rash and treasonable words, he could not in any case be the author
of the insulting verses which had been found at the Serapeum with the
rope, Caracalla echoed his praises of the picture, and desired to see
both the painter and his sister.

That morning, as he rose from his bed, he had been informed that the
planets which had been seen during the past night from the observatory of
the Serapeum, promised him fortune and happiness in the immediate future.
He was himself a practiced star-reader, and the chief astrologer of the
temple had pointed out to him how peculiarly favorable the constellation
was whence he had deduced his prediction. Then, Phoebus Apollo had
appeared to him in a dream; the auguries from the morning's sacrifices
had all been favorable; and, before he dispatched Philostratus to fetch
Melissa, he added:

"It is strange! The best fortune has always come to me from a gloomy
sky. How brightly the sun shone on my marriage with the odious
Plautilla! It has rained, on the contrary, on almost all my victories;